Plugins menu doesn't appear in the admin panel

Question

I'm having a very simple problem. I'm new to WordPress and I'm trying to install a plugin.

Everyone says there's a "plugins" option on the sidebar-menu in the admin panel, but I don't see one! I've looked for it in all the sub-menus too.

Whenever I try to search for this problem, I get results about creating a plugin to show on the admin menu.

Anyway, how can I get the plugins menu to show up?

Answer 1

The issue is almost certainly related to one of two things:

1) You don't have permissions (are you logged in as admin?)

OR

2) The theme (or a plugin) has disabled the plugins menu.

After you've checked to be sure that you are an administrator, then you should attempt to view this page:

http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin/plugins.php (replacing www.yourdomain.com with your site's domain name).

If it's accessible, then it's time to start exploring the theme (which theme are you using?) and possibly some of the plugins that might have disabled the menu item.

FYI, the method to remove dashboard menu items is covered here: http://www.wprecipes.com/how-to-remove-menus-in-wordpress-dashboard

Answer 2

If you did double check your file permissions (i.e. 755 for folders and 644 for wordpress files on Linux), please consider editing your wp-config.php file and change

define('DISALLOW_FILE_MODS',true);

to

define('DISALLOW_FILE_MODS',false);

The Add New option in Plugins menu will show up, also if you have internet connection, possible updates will be shown up.